Amazon's Spotify-for-books: THE TRUTH

After this week's leak of an all-you-can-read service, Bezos & co 'fesses up

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Amazon has confirmed the launch of a monthly subscription service that will allow unlimited access to ebooks and audiobooks.

The company said Kindle Unlimited will allow peeps to pay a $9.99 flat fee and have full access to a collection of 600,000 titles. The service covers printed and audio titles.

To promote the subscription service, Amazon is offering customers a free 30-day trial.

"With Kindle Unlimited, you won't have to think twice before you try a new author or genre—you can just start reading and listening," Kindle senior vice president Russ Grandinetti declared in introducing the service.

"In addition to offering over 600,000 ebooks, Kindle Unlimited is also by far the most cost-effective way to enjoy audiobooks and ebooks together."

In addition to Amazon's own Kindle hardware line, the Unlimited service will be offered for Kindle apps on iOS and Android. The company said the service is only available in the US, though an international rollout is planned.

If this news sounds familiar, it's because an Amazon slip-up let word of the Unlimited service get out earlier this week when the company inadvertently set the main web page for the service live.

The page was quickly taken down, but not before eagle-eyed netizens were able to dig it out of Google's cache and share copies online. ®